7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

Web applications are popping up faster and faster every day, and quite a few are using the power that Ajax offers to their advantage. They create sites with lofty ideas and ideas of the future that might need a little bit of grounding. Anyone that?s paying attention can see that there are just some practices that aren?t working, and are only leading to developers watching their applications flounder or fail. There?s theories all around about why this is happening, but one of my favorites so far is this list from Joshua Porter over on Bokardo.com.

His list, made up of seven different ideas, can be applied to just about any kind of web application out there, not just those using Ajax. For each idea, he talks briefly about what it means (not just for the developer, but for the users too) and ways that you can avoid falling into this pit.

He suggests the following:

• Focus on social instead of personal.
• They solve too many problems, or try to.
• They?re about making someone other than the user happy.
• They sell it the wrong way.
• Not in it for the long haul.
• They show too much of what?s going on, and get gamed.
• They don?t have an underlying business strategy of improving people?s lives.

I know I?ve been guilty of the second option, hacking away at my code with these grand ideas of making a full-featured site up from nothing. The only problem - all the features in the world won?t be used if there?s no one to use them. Thankfully, there seem to be a few movements in place (like some ideas from the 37 signals folks) to encourage people in the direction of Joshua?s tips - make is simple, make it work, and make it useful.

[via Ajaxian]